The months of April and May were super snowy this year in the Pacific Northwest, and for that I’ve been really thankful. That said, I jumped at the opportunity to head out with John and Joe to get some corn snow turns in on a peak I’ve always wanted to explore — Belknap Crater. Given some challenging logistics, I met up with Joe, John and John’s friend Dennis at the snow gate on 242 around 6:30 am. It didn’t take long to load our packs, hop on the bikes, and head out.
The plan was to meet up at the trailhead, since John and Dennis had electric bikes and Joe and I were on pedal units. John and Dennis were planning to camp (Joe and I weren’t), so the plan was to be ready to hit the skin track about the same time since they were setting up camp first thing. Joe and I took off from the cars first, and it didn’t for John and Dennis to fly by us without even having to work for it!
The ride up the hill was quite pleasant, and quite a bit easier, at least from my memory of it from when I did Black Crate with John a few years earlier. Soon Joe and I made it to the Black Crater trailhead, and then pressed on, working our way through huge drifts of snow before eventually arriving at the top at Dee Wright. Once at Dee Wright, it was a downhill glide all the way to the trail.
At the trailhead, we met up with John and Dennis. Dennis was having an issue with one of his skins (it had failed the day before on the South Sister), and John realized he forgot to load both of their poles on the bike trailer. John was fretting a bit and even though about biking back to the car, but we figured it would kill too much time and give us way to late of a start. Not to worry too much, I found a couple of suitable sticks from a tree near the road that would work. Dennis decided his skin issues were likely going to be too difficult to work out right away, so he told us to head out and that he’d meet us at the trailhead in the afternoon and may just go out for a tour across the lava fields if he could get the skins working again.
With that, we headed out, and quickly gained access to the lava fields and views they afford just a little bit beyond the road. It looked like for the most part that the snow fields were connected, and there might only be one or two spots where the skis would have to come off. Meanwhile, Joe and I had to give John shit on the skin track for forgetting his poles. He earned the name “stickboy” and the joke that was told a few times was “Give a man a stick, he skis for a day. Teach a man to find his own sticks, and he skis for life.” I do have to say though, with the sticks, he looks even more like John Muir.
As we approached Belknap, it became apparent that a pretty large avalanche had occurred on the southeast face of the mountain. We had seen the fracture line from the road, but given it’s placement and location, couldn’t tell what it was and thought it might actually be a snowmobile track. Deciding that the snow on the face might be pretty soft, we elected to head to the north and skin up the ridge to provide a safe route to the top.
Once at the top, we ditched the skis and boards in at the end of the snow and made the short hike to the true summit to take in the views. It was a bit windy up top, but the views to the east, south and west were definitely worth it.
After enjoying the views to the south and out across the crater, we headed down towards the ski gear and found a wind break where we could sit and enjoy the views as well as drink a cold beverage. It sure felt good to bask in the sun while being protected from the wind, and it also felt good to tip back a cold beer. My beer of choice for the day was a tasty Northwest IPA from Dirt Road Brewing, brewed in the town I grew up in – Philomath, Oregon.
A bit later, it was time to strap on the downhill gear and make some turns. We agreed that we were going to come back up for another lap, so I left half my beer in a snow cozy to enjoy on the next go-around. Joe snapped a “sponsor” shot of me up top, and then we dropped in on the north slope for some fun turns.
I dropped in first, and made a few fun turns down before finding a suitable spot to shoot some shots of John and Joe as they headed down. I fired off several shots, and the one directly below of John skiing with two sticks (and one of my poles) cracks me up. He knew how ridiculous it looked as well, as is evident by the sheepish smile on his face.
We worked our way down the ridge and then wrapped on down around towards our skin track below. The snow was pretty good all the way down the ridge, but became a bit sticky lower down. Once down to the trees, we switched back over to skins and headed back up for another lap.
Back at the top, I enjoyed what was left of my beer, and we waxed up our bases for a bit better glide on the way back down. After talking it over, we decided to head over to the south side of the crater and give the south side of the east face a go. We figured the east face may slide with the snow being so soft, but figured we could work our way towards the south ridge if need be and ride next snow/dirt line.
It didn’t take long to get back on the snow, click into our bindings, and work our way to a suitable vantage point to find our line. We decided to ski above the crown face (which was around a week old or so), with the option of traversing south if needed. Joe grabbed the camera, and we headed down. We figured the snow would be overly soft, but it turned out to ski really well.
It was pretty sweep to slay the steep slope, and we hooped and hollered on our way down, working our way to the crown face below. We stopped to give it further inspection, and were surprised that it was almost three feet tall at it’s high point, and probably 2 feet tall across the majority of the face. Given it’s odd location, we figured it must have happened due to a combination of fresh snow and strong winds, followed by warm sunshine shortly thereafter.
From the crown face, we headed on down, enjoying the last few turns on the steep slope, before sliding our way through the trees and regrouping with our skin track from the morning.
The “ski” out from the bottom of Belknap proved to be pretty challenging. For some reason, the snow had a ton of pollen in it, and we picked up a ton of pollen/tar on our bases, making gliding out very challenging. I switched to split ski mode, and we slowly worked our way out to the trailhead. It took nearly as long to get out as it did to get int, but finally we made it back to the bikes, and found Dennis there waiting. Turns out he did get out for a tour, and was able to see us up top of Belknap from the lava fields below. At the bikes, since we weren’t camping, Joe and I hit the road rather quickly, and bid John and Dennis farewell.
We pedaled our way back up to Dee Wright, and opted to stop and check it out for a few minutes before heading on down the road. The views from the observatory were pretty nice, and the cutout notches for all the surrounding volcanic peaks were pretty cool too. They even had one for Belknap Crater.
With our urge to check out Dee Wright satisfied, we headed back to the bikes and pedaled a little more before a great downhill ride back to the cars. The downhill on the bike is kind of like the downhill on the skis — definitely worth it after a grunt on the uphill.
It was getting late by the time we reached the cars, and both Joe and I were hungry, so we headed down the road a short bit to a campground and found a picnic table that worked great to cook up some brats. Before long they were cooking up nice, and I was ready to enjoy another cold beer. The afternoon’s offering was a crisp and refreshing Oceanic Pale Ale from Pelican Brewing.
The beers and brats definitely hit the spot, and we wolfed them down after working up a big appetite biking and skiing. Feeling quite satisfied with the day, it was time to hit the road. Joe was headed to Belknap Hot Springs to meet up with his wife, and I was headed home, so we headed our separate ways, stoked on another fun adventure in the Oregon cascades. Here’s a parting shot from the day…
July 16, 2022
“sticky John” LMAO